Welcome to the tumultuous and ferocious swirls and whirls with hard and heavy, Jazz-infused metal music delivered by the Norwegian powerhouse Agabas.
Many of us share a sense of the world stage of politics being in complete chaos. Even if one sits in the storm’s calm eye and watches the tumultuous politics and wars raging on, one might feel a kind of frustrated despair and fury combined with heaps of helplessness. Agabas manage to fuse this into a stunning album, featuring a whirl of blasting music that embodies their unique style of Death Jazz. It is boiling and foaming with anger and discontent. The album is a direct continuation of the previous one, A Hate Supreme, music that oozes of a frenzied outrage underpinned by the wrath of the lyrics delivered with angry, ferocious vocals. This album is more mature, but as feral as the previous one. It seems they have turned everything up a notch, to eleven.
Singing in the Norwegian dialect from Trøndelag, the vocalist´s hoarse growls and screams are emotive and raw, delivering lines like: “We humans give, we humans take / While time runs out in the bathtub of the universe / The work we have created could save all we have lost / But as true as time is constant / all knowledge can precede madness” or “A beautiful sky / I get so dizzy / From seeing it in the distance / From a distance the mushroom looks like a star”, but also about longing for love and togetherness, “Touch my bare soul / Feel my open wounds / Become a part of me / While I take part in you” (all originally Norwegian lyrics were translated).
They hammer on with their message of love and respect for everyone, regardless of color or gender as in the first song “Kjærlighet for alle (Love for All)”: A high-voltage bolt hits you in the opening seconds and it does not slow down as the rhythm section pounds on, a discordant saxophone swirls in the middle with fast riffs on each side. It’s hard, it’s fast, it’s Death Jazz. The music races forward with the saxophone high and low in the heavy and tight sonics overrun by the breathless vocalist, “Are you troubled by your choices / Is the road filled with holes / Is the world against you? / You are not alone”. The vocalist is joined by others, adding to the tumultuous music as it opens up with clean, fleeting vocals compounded only by a bad-ass rhythm section drumming. A scream is heard, and then the music fuses back to it previous fury with the saxophone leading.
The anger continues on “Jævla menneske (Fucking Human)” with a hard beating and chugging opening of the next song. The drumming is intense, and the bursts of saxophones add to this. Yes, saxophones plural as the band is joined by fellow Norwegians Shining, throwing their genre-blending Blackjazz into the Death Jazz mix. It is an intense song where the two saxophones fight for attention in the dense and rhythmic mix, and the two vocals compete with each other; cold shrieks from Shining´s Blackjazz vocalist and deeper growls from the Death Jazz vocalist. A dynamic song accelerating in ferocity.
On a song later in the album, the band is joined by the US musician and saxophonist Michael Wilbur on the swirling “Vis meg alt (Show Me Everything)». It has a heavy rhythm section, and a bass saxophone adds both force and cascades of sound as the music shifts from tight and elongated parts, taking turns into powerful rhythmic, relentlessly hammering. Then the music dives into a maelstrom of versatile saxophones playing against each other before a new heavy part.
“En vakker himmel (A Beautiful Sky)» is hard and heavy with fast chugging riffs, rumbling bass, and diverse drumming. When the vocals pause a bit, the saxophone takes charge, supported by a thumbing bass, before everything blends together with bursts from the saxophone in the middle. Then the music pans out and elongated lamentations rise before it turns into impro Jazz style playing with low-end bass. Bursts of heavy riffs follow and drums change the sonics, and we are back into the realms of Death Jazz.
The band blasts on with an intense opening in “La blodet flomme (Let the Blood Flow)» racing forward with blasting intensity until a subtle change with a swirling saxophone joining the angry vocals. It all ends in a musical downward spiral.
That the band has its surprises in the music is unsurprising, as they have full control over the cascades they throw at us. On the hard-hitting song “Arv (Inheritance)” where the rhythm section is raging and the never-resting saxophone bursts in and out of the sonics, there is an abrupt halt: A laid-back saxophone joined by a keyboard takes us into a smoke-filled Jazz club. But not for long; the music surges back into the tight realm of the heavy sonics of Death Jazz. On another song, “En enkel sjel (A Simple Soul)», an acoustic guitar gives reprieve, when it appears joined by a fuzzy electric guitar before the hoarse growls are back: “It’s impossible to do anything else / The world is built on a framework / That means we can’t trust / Anyone at all”.
The album closer “På åpent hav (On the High Seas)» is the longest song and opens with an acoustic guitar before it surges into a literally screaming crescendo, and it lays out wide and tight sonics. The song leaps forward with bursts alternating with a blasting, tight cascade of music, immersing the saxophone as it snakes its way through the musical chaos.
This song, at just over six minutes, shows that the band can keep the listeners captivated even with lengthy songs. This might lead to exciting things in the future. One thing is for sure: the band has a bright one if it continues like this. The musicians are innovative and creative in both music and lyrics. The band´s live performances always blow the audience away with their complex intensity. Adding to this is the good mood and the fun attitude the band always displays.
